Arabic

Arabic (الْعَرَبيّة(al-ʿarabiyyah) or simply عَرَبيْ(ʿarabī)) is the largest living member of the Semitic language family in terms of speakers. Classified as Central Semitic, it is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic, and has its roots in a Proto-Semitic common ancestor. Modern Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage with 27 sub-languages in ISO 639-3. These varieties are spoken throughout the Arab world, and Standard Arabic is widely studied and known throughout the Islamic world.

Modern Standard Arabic derives from Classical Arabic, the only surviving member of the Old North Arabian dialect group, attested epigraphically since the 6th century, which has been a literary language and the liturgical language of Islam since the 7th century.

Arabic has lent many words to other languages of the Islamic world, as Latin has contributed to most European languages. And in turn, it has also borrowed from those languages, as well as Persian and Sanskrit from early contacts with their affiliated regions. During the Middle Ages, Arabic was a major vehicle of culture, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy, with the result that many European languages have also borrowed numerous words from it.

This wikibook aims to teach Arabic, and we are always looking for contributors.

Surat al-Fatiha, the first chapter of the Qur'an
The Qur'an is often claimed to be, in addition to the Muslim scripture, the pinnacle of Arabic literature. The Qur'an is divided into chapters (in Arabic, sura pl. suwar [سورة ج. سور]). The sura in this link is the first sura in the Qur'an and is a common starting point for reading the Qur'an. Note though, that after this sura, it's often not advised to read the suwar in sequence, since the second sura, al-Baqara, is the longest in the Qur'an and can be daunting.

Muqaddima of Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldun is considered one of the most important figures of Islamic history writing; some consider him the most important pre-modern historian from any culture. He developed a philosophy of history and is considered by some to be a founding father of sociology. The Muqaddima, or Introduction, is his most famous work, and is the first part of a longer work of universal history. In the Muqaddima, he lays out his philosophy of history.